Thursday, March 11, 2010

The company writes that the new biking features will “include as much bike trail data as possible, provide efficient routes, allow riders to customize their trip, make use of bike lanes, calculate rider-friendly routes that avoid big hills and customize the look of the map for cycling to encourage folks to hop on their bikes.”

The new option now sits next to the current Google Maps standbys — car, public transit and walking — for online routing options, so users can select the new option from the dropdown menu to uncover a Google-recommended bike routes (likely sans big hills!).

You can also turn on a “Bicycling” layer via the “More” tab when zoomed into a particular city in Google Maps. The trails’ green hues should indicate terrain and road type. Dark green equates to bike-only, light green means there’s a bike lane, and dashed green means it’s a decent biking path but one without a bike lane.

Before you get too excited, we should note that as of right now biking is not an option in mobile apps, so make sure to plan ahead before you hit the pavement.

I am not currently a biker, but I hope to get a new bike soon. This great news reminded me of my brother, Pat who has cycled from Florida to Ohio and West Texas to Louisiana. He was always looking for a good map that would tell him how he could get safely from one place to the next on his bike.

So on behalf of all bikers everywhere...Thank you Google maps!
(this tidbit discovered thru a newsletter received from www.Mashable.com )